


Continuing to Breathe

by UchiHime



Series: Tumblr Ficlets [5]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Asexual Character, Asexual Sam Wilson, Asexuality, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Comfort Food, Demiromantic Bucky Barnes, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Future Fic, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Pansexual Bucky Barnes, and cookies, everyone takes care of everyone, music makes everything better, or comfort baking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-17
Updated: 2015-01-19
Packaged: 2018-03-07 23:26:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3187181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UchiHime/pseuds/UchiHime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A small collection of Steve/Bucky/Sam ficlets from my tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The sleeping thing took some getting used to. That is, the “none of them really sleeping all that much” thing.

The super soldier serum left Steve needing less sleep than the average person, and he took advantage of that by pushing himself well and truly to his limits. He slept as little as possible, he avoided sleep and all that came with it. Steve would go days without rest before his body finally demanded it from him.

Bucky needed almost as much sleep as non-super humans. He didn’t try to avoid it. In fact, he craved it. It was difficult for him to fall asleep. He would lay in bed, staring at the ceiling for hours, willing sleep to come to no avail. Sometimes it would be dawn before he finally managed to drift off. They’d tried many things to help him. Everything from sleeping pills to warm milk to working him to the point of exhaustion. Nothing worked. His mind and body just refused to switch off. Luckily, when he did sleep, he slept like the dead.

Sam had no problem falling asleep every night, in fact he was usually out the moment his head hit the pillow. No, his issue was staying asleep. He’d go the bed at a reasonable hour and wake up at 3am for no real reason and wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep. It was like someone flipped a switch in his brain from sleep to awake and it refused to be flipped back for at least the next twelve hours.

This was not mentioning the fact that they all had nightmares.

Some nights, Sam would wake up before Bucky could pass out and Steve had no intentions of sleeping and the three of them would curl up on the couch together. Sometimes, they never spoke a word. Sometimes, Sam would make them all hot chocolate and they’d pop in a DVD (usually something Disney because late nights called for light hearts.)

There were nights Sam would wake up after Bucky fell asleep, and he would get out of bed to find Steve sitting in the living room. On the nights he didn’t sleep, Steve would stay up watching movies from his list, or reading a book, drawing in his sketchbook, or just staring silently into the darkness. Sam would crawl onto the couch next to him and shove his cold toes under Steve’s warm thigh. He’d offer his thoughts on the movie, or ask how Steve was liking the book, or steal his sketchpad out of his hand, or just sit there in the darkness with him.

On the nights where Steve would finally crash but Bucky was still awake when the switch in Sam flipped, they baked cookies. Always. No exception. If it was just Sam and Bucky awake, there were cookies being made. Sometimes there was a playlist in the background and they danced around the kitchen. Sometimes the only words spoken were “pass me this” or “go do that.” The very first batch they ever made were simple 3 ingredient peanut butter cookies. Sam’s favorite were the triple chocolate chunk, but Bucky liked snicker doodles. Sometimes, Bucky would fall asleep with his head in his arms on the counter while the cookies were in the oven. Sam would finish the batch on his own and put them in a storage container for the three of them to eat in the morning.

Occasionally, Sam would wake to an empty house and a note saying Steve and Bucky had opted for a late night stroll. Sam would make himself a cup of tea and plant his butt on the couch with his favorite blanket wrapped around his shoulders. He might turn the TV on mute or play his iPod. When Steve and Bucky came home, Bucky usually headed straight for bed, but Steve would join him on the couch and wait for the sun.

The best nights were when Steve was spread eagle across the bed and Sam was snoring enough to wake the dead and Bucky was hogging the covers in his imitation of a human burrito. Sam drooled and Bucky kicked and Steve talked in his sleep. When all of this happened at once, it was the best night’s sleep any of them ever got.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is actually in the same 'verse as the first ficlet. (Actually, all these ficlets are in the same 'verse, unlike my usual ficlet collections.) This ficlet was born because I just really needed to seem Steve and Bucky taking care of Sam, and I really needed to see Sam more not-okay than he's usually portrayed. I'm kinda in love with the idea of all of them carrying each other through moments of humanity (not moments of weakness, because there is a certain strength in breaking.) Anyway... yeah.

Sam wakes when it’s still dark out, nothing new there. He glances at his alarm clock. The time says somewhere between early and late, but it’s the date that makes him roll over and pull the covers over his head. For once, he’s grateful for their erratic sleeping patterns, because as much as he loves Steve and Bucky, he’s glad to not have them there with him at this time. 

He curls his body around a pillow and coaches his breathing: inhale 2-3-4-5-6-7, exhale 3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11. Inhale. If he concentrates on his breathing, he won’t have to think about anything else. Exhale. Breathing is easy and important. It means he’s alive. It keeps him alive. Inhale. Sometimes the act of continued breathing is the only thing success can be measured by.

Bucky comes to bed, but he’s practically sleepwalking. He’s so dead on his feet, he doesn’t even notice the sound of carefully measured breathing in place of Sam’s usual snoring. He crawls into his side of the bed and immediately wraps himself in the blanket designated as his after Sam and Steve got tired of having to fight for covers. Bucky is asleep almost instantly.

Sam stops coaching himself through 7-11 breathing and tries to match up with Bucky’s breathing instead. It has a different effect than 7-11. It makes him feel connected to Bucky. Tethered to the earth. 

He thinks he dozes for a minute or two, because his next moment of awareness is Steve softly shaking his shoulder. “You’ll be late for work.”

Sam curls around the pillow more and tugs the cover more securely over his head so that not one ray of light can come in. It’s suddenly harder to breath. His inhales are shaky and exhaling feels impossible. He makes a sound that might be a sob.

"I’ll call you off," Steve says. He squeezes Sam’s shoulder comfortingly, then leaves him alone. When Steve comes back, Sam is coaching his breathing again. Carefully measured inhales and exhales coaxed along by the thought that continued breathing is a victory. As long as he keeps breathing, he’ll be fine.

Steve wakes Bucky and they have a whispered conversation that Sam doesn’t bother trying to listen to. Bucky gets out of bed and leaves the room with Steve. He comes back not a minute later. Something is placed on the bed next to Sam’s head and his arm is given a comforting squeeze.

When he hears the door close behind Bucky leaving, Sam pulls the covers from over his head and finds his iPod sitting on the mattress. The smile he gives is as faint as the morning light, but there’s no one there to see it anyway. He grabs the iPod and pulls it under the covers with him. 

He starts crying halfway through Ruben Studdard’s  _”_ Flying Without Wings.” He’s half laughing, half sobbing through Riley’s theme “Pretty Fly for a White Guy” the next time the bedroom door opens.

"Are you hungry?" Steve asks from the doorway. Sam shakes his head, though Steve can’t see it under the covers. "I’ll bring you lunch in a couple of hours," Steve offers. "That alright?"

Sam nods, still invisible beneath the covers. Steve leaves. 

Eventually, the music just becomes background noise to Sam trying not to fall apart. It feels like barbed wire wrapped around his lungs, making each breath more painful than the one before. His thoughts are circling the drain of misery. People he couldn’t save. Things he should have done. Words he regretted saying or not saying. Everything was just a black cloud of too much.

Steve brings him lunch, but Sam is crying too hard to eat it. Steve climbs into bed behind him and pulls him into his arms. He mumbles consoling nonsense, but mostly just holds him. Sam cries until the tears run out and all he can offer are shaky sniffles shuddering breaths.

Bucky joins them a couple of hours later. “I made cookies,” he says, carrying the plate across the room and taking a seat on the floor with his back resting against the bed. “Triple chocolate chunk, your favorite.” He raises that plate towards Sam and Sam grabs one with a small smile.

Bucky smiles back at him. “Do you wanna talk about it?” He asks as Sam nibbles his cookie. Sam shakes his head and Bucky just nods in understanding. “We’re here if you ever do want to talk.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Christmas with the Avengers special.

They make popcorn garlands. And cranberry garlands. And paper chain garlands. They decorate the tree with candy canes and paper snowflakes and little arts and craftsy things made of popsicle sticks and glitter glue. Not a single store bought ornament makes it onto the tree, much to Tony’s chagrin. He’d been all for having decorators come and set them up a tree that looked like it belonged in a catalogue, not a family room.

It was Bucky and Bruce who strung all the popcorn with surprisingly gentle hands threading through the fragile kernels. The paper chain over the doorway had all their hopes and wishes for the New Year written on the loops of paper Steve meticulously cut and stapled. 

Thor and Clint almost had a fist fight over the purple glitter glue, but Pepper with her unending patience squashed it by stealing the glue for herself and giving them a look that made them flush like chastised preschoolers.

Natasha’s skill at making paper snowflakes was almost unreal. No two looked the same and they contained an amount of detail that would make you believe that surely she used a stencil, except they’d all sat there and watch her cut them free hand.

Sam made little people out of pinecones, pipe cleaners, and wooden beads. One for each Avenger, done with such care there was no mistaking who was who.

Tony ate more cranberries than he strung and complained to Jarvis about the music playing. He flicked a cranberry at Bruce, but accidentally hit Bucky, who retaliated by throwing a handful of popcorn that hit Steve and Sam. Sam chucked a pinecone that Bucky deflected with a wave of his hand, making it fly at Thor instead.

Unable to decide if he should retaliate against Sam of Bucky for that attack, Thor simply picked up a thing of glitter and poured it over Clint’s head. Clint flailed and accidentally hit Natasha, causing her to rip the snowflake she was cutting.

All hell broke loose.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This ficlet is 100% me projecting my own sexuality onto Sam, but hopefully doing so in a tasteful way.

Steve breaks off their kiss with a gasped “oh fuck” and Sam lets out an amused snort. Over Steve’s shoulder, Bucky grins. Bucky is balls deep inside Steve, who is on all fours over Sam’s reclined form. It was their favored position. It kept Sam in contact but not involved.

Sam once had a girlfriend ask him if he was “against sex.” He’d told her no. He wasn’t against sex. He liked sex in an objective way. He enjoyed watching it. Was very turned on by the sight of people giving each other pleasure. He’d jerked off to his fair share of porn. But when it came to actually performing the act with another person, Sam just wasn’t all that into it. He’d told the girlfriend that he wasn’t against sex in general, just against him personally having sex.

It wasn’t until three years later that he’d learned the word for it. The term ‘asexual’ had first made him think of single-cell organisms in biology class splitting in two, but when he learned how it applied to people, it had just felt right. And then autochorissexual had felt even more accurate.

He’d explained it to Steve right off the bat. The very first time they’d kissed, Sam had sat them down for the DTR conversation. He’d made sure Steve knew exactly what he was getting into, everything he should and shouldn’t expect. Then they’d both explained it to Bucky when he came along. The only difficulty had been explaining that sexual orientation and romantic orientation weren’t the same. Having a word for bisexual was a foreign concept to the men out of time, so breaking down the whole sexual/romantic spectrum had taken hours of online research.

At the end of the talk, it had been worth it so that they could all say with confidence Sam was asexual biromantic, Steve was bisexual biromantic, and Bucky was pansexual demiromantic. 

Steve groaned again and Sam watched his dark blond lashes fall against his cheek as he squeezed his eyes closed. Bucky looked down at him through half-lidded eyes over dilated pupils, his fingers clinging tightly to Steve’s hips. Sam was the one who groaned when a pink lip was pulled between Bucky’s teeth. Steve’s whole body rocked with the force of Bucky’s thrusts.

Sam wasn’t actually hard at the moment, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t enjoying his front row seat for the sight of these two beautiful men making each other fall apart. 

"Oh god, Bucky." Steve keened. His arms collapsed beneath him, bringing him back in range for more of Sam’s kisses. Sloppy open-mouthed kisses filled his gasping breaths and muttered profanities. Bucky looked too fucking proud of himself. If Sam could reach him, he would have yanked his hair and bit his neck and watch him turn into a mewling mess.

When Steve came, it was with a loud curse, his whole body shaking as his cock spurted all over Sam. Bucky redoubled his thrusts. His body froze and he released a barely audible whimper as he met his own completion.

Sam smiled at his two lovers, gently running his hands over every bit of exposed flesh he could reach. The two super soldiers moved to more comfortable positions on the bed and Sam continued touching them and whispering endearments, finally claiming a kiss from Bucky, told them how beautiful they were and how much he loved them.

The first couple of times, Steve had needed to be reassured that Sam did not need to come everytime they had sex. But, by this point they were all comfortable with each other and their sexualities and it was understood that Sam found his own kind of pleasure in seeing them find pleasure.

**Author's Note:**

> My tumblr is [here](http://littleredtriskele.tumblr.com).


End file.
